Halifax Environment Loss Prevention (HELP)

About HELP

Organized in January 1992, Halifax Environmental Loss Program (HELP) is a racially mixed group of citizens working together to protect their community from the environmental and economic threats posed by large scale intensive livestock operations. These farms have a history of polluting soil, groundwater and air with the uncontrolled, untreated waste of thousands of animals. Huge, vertically integrated corporations are moving rapidly into Eastern North Carolina and exploiting African-American and Native American communities desperate for economic "development" and make up a significant portion of the many environmental injustices experienced by communities of color and poor communities in the area.

HELP networks with citizens groups locally, statewide and nationally to regulate these facilities. HELP initiated a citizen lobby which convinced the Halifax County Board of Health to adopt a regulatory ordinance governing intensive livestock operations. The Halifax County Board of Health is the first health board in North Carolina to take such action. This ordinance has become a model for other communities and counties who wish to regulate corporate hog operations. HELP also convinced the Halifax County Commissioners to implement a 30 day moratorium on the construction of corporate hog operations and participated in a state lobby to study the effects of intensive livestock operations on the surrounding environment. In 1994, HELP co-hosted with BREDL (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League) three state-wide roundtable discussions on the impact of this industry on local communities at the Tillery Community Center. HELP also formed the Hog Roundtable to address the injustices of corporate hog farming in eastern North Carolina.

Intensive Livestock Operations

Intensive livestock operations are huge factories housing thousands of hogs or chickens in a confined area. These operations have a history of polluting the land, water, and air with uncontrolled, untreated waste from thousands of animals. Excrement pours from the buildings in which the animals are housed into unlined, uncovered pits measuring as large as eight acres. There have been countless incidents of lagoons either bursting, polluting rivers and waterways, or letting large amounts of waste slowly seep into the water table, polluting drinking water in areas with a large number of shallow wells.

Huge, vertically integrated corporations, especially hog operations, have turned family hog farmers into an endangered species. A study by the Institute for Southern Studies revealed that producers including Murphy Farms and Carroll's Foods contribute tens of thousands of dollars to the coffers of state legislators in order to insure that environmental regulations are not instated. Some laws protecting the industry from exiting government regulation were passed while Wendell Murphy of Murphy Farms was a member of the General Assembly; Murphy even sponsored a number of these bills. Senator Faircloth and other government officials in North Carolina own large numbers of hogs.

HELP Fights Environmental Injustice

HELP has broadened its mission to address environmental racism in all its insidious forms. HELP is a founding member of a state-wide Environmental Justice Network of grassroots and traditional environmental groups who are working to make environmental justice a reality for all the citizens of Halifax County. HELP, along with other activist organizations, has lobbied to regulate the North Carolina Legislature to support a legislative bill to regulate the corporate hog industry. The group is working to have an environmental justice bill passed by the NC Legislature and has called for a moratorium on construction of new facilities until a thorough environmental impact study is released.

In addition, HELP fosters the organizing and empowerment of poor communities and communities of color in Halifax County and eastern North Carolina who are directly affected by environmental racism. In 1994, HELP worked with several other environmental organizations to organize two eastern North Carolina communities of color seeking to stop the construction of a sewage treatment plant and a hazardous waste incinerator in their communities. Involvement in these communities is an ongoing process, as leaders within the communities are discovered and empowered to fight environmental as well as other forms of racism.

HELP envisions a future in which community-based, environmentally sound economic development is the rule, instead of the exception. Members will continue their activism until all communities of color stop being treated as dumping grounds.